yeah i think 9 taplands is probably unnecessary for dual-color, the Ingots and maybe 5 total taplands should be enough for the Obelisk. i would also consider finding a way to fit in Skymark Roc, probably i would cut two Esperzoa to put them in since you're not going full Esper with Glaze Fiend etc. the Obelisk's -2/-2 ability should make the Rocs really rock.

I've been working on the combo deck posted here http://forum.nogoblinsallowed.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=4681&start=160#p216214

Traumatic visions was a fantastic addition for the deck, because we might need double blue early or triple white by turn six, and it offers us flood protection at the same time. It works well enough in the place of a land slot, but if I ran a second one and 23 lands I feel like I'd be using it to find a land more often than I'd like. This deck wants to curve out early with walls, counters, and think twice, so i'd have to run it in a spell slot. It's seems too over-costed to do that,and we have no good cuts.

The additional tap lands improved mana reliability enough that we can now cast nullify early, and improved consistency on our white as well. I've been testing a bit, but I don't think we want all of the tap lands even if we sometimes fail our planar cleansing. Having at least one untapped land in our opening hand is crucial so we don't fall behind, and later on we want to be holding up mana on top of what we play. 8 tap lands seems manageable, but I'm considering scaling it down a bit further. It's possible we just want more consistent white, fewer tap lands, and cut the nullifies.

Time warp is a fun card, but it fits very poorly in the deck. Once we find our combo and protect it with our counters for a turn or so we win anyway, so in that case it's just a win more card. If we lose, we either die before we stabilize or we don't find our draw and we run out of gas. Seems to me like either inspiration or more counters will win us more games than a time warp.

The resolute archangel doesn't do much against the decks I see. If I saw more burn decks that tossed red spells at my face I'd consider it, but the goblin decks win before I have seven mana or don't win at all, and the fatties decks haven't caught on to the resounding thunder/banefire finisher yet.

Here's my current list running 61 cards since I'm still testing. If I had to cut something it would probably be a negate or a nullify.



Anyone else been playing this since the expansion?

I have been testing this all day and I was pretty close with my initial list. The only thing to note is that pretender is just bad. I replace it with an extra angelic edict. Here is my current list



You draw a lot of cards and have a lot of recursion. Finding the planar cleansing can be key in some games but overall the deck is really strong. You can have a great opener of turn 4 obelisk and you also have a great end game with baneslayer and sharding sphinx.

Unfortunately there is no room for counters as you tap out every turn but you do get to play the best blue and white creatures along with a very strong artifact plan.

I know the Ingots let you access the other modes of the Obelisk while being bouncable through Esperzoa in a pinch, but three feels like overkill and I'm not sure you need the card at all. Wall of Omens also feels sort of lackluster, though I get the Mentor of the Meek synergy.

Have you thought about Stoneforge Mystic and some equipment instead? Something like:

-3 Wall of Omens
-3 Darksteel Ingot
-1 Angelic Edict

+1 Darksteel Axe
+2 Stoneforge Mystic
+4 Squadron Hawk

A tutorable one-mana artifact goes great with Esperzoa and Stoneforge actually blocks quite well; the 1/2 body is deceptive. I like Squadron Hawk because it's just card advantage, but you could easily add another piece of equipment to diversify and add some other creatures instead.

This is a control deck really, wall of omens does a lot of work.

Ingot is also important for a number of reasons. It allows you to cast planar cleansing a turn earlier if needed, it is also needed to keep the artifact count high for esperzoa. But most importantly this deck draws a lot of cards, the ramp ensures you can cast them all.

I did look at stoneforge but the equipment options are not good enough for me.

As a word of warning for anyone playing this deck, don't have 2 mentors in play with 2 sharding sphinx, I did this and attacked with 8 artifacts, it took forever to resolve.

I'll take your word for it, but it doesn't look much like control. You only have seven ways to interact outside of combat. It seems like a midrange deck with some combo elements (bounce and recursion).

I can see the ridiculous draw power, though.

The ability to run 6 additional UW dual lands helped this build out a lot, since it needs both blue and white early. It steadily commits to the board while drawing cards and bouncing your opponent's
threats. I've liked Brackwater Elemental because of how it works with Cloudfin Raptor and as a cheap 8 damage split between 2 creatures and/or players. Even when it doesn't have a good attack it can just stay back and prevent most creatures with cmc <= 3 from attacking.

I was curious if anyone knows if splashing green for Rhox War Monk and Rafiq of the Many in this shell is worth doing?

Edit: Almost forgot Pestermite has been amazing since the dlc. With the increase in cipt lands. Eot bounce your threat untap attack pass turn upkeep tap down a land has been a strong play against most decks running 2 or more colors. Against mono color decks it is usually better to either tap down an attacking creature creature, tap down one of they're blockers or untap one of your blockers depending on who has a shorter clock.

I can never understand playing Wall of Omens in a deck that wants to be attacking. I also don't like playing multiple Bidents but that's just personal taste. Other than that, it looks solid.

As I promised, here's another of my friend's decks. And it's a weird one... Azorius Artifacts/Blue Tokens!



So, Raoh hasn't been on in a few days, so this is compiled from memory and there could be a few mistakes, but the general scope of things is accurate - a twist on Azorius Artifacts by including Chasm Skulkers and Paragons.

The deck shouldn't work, and occasionally doesn't work, but when it does (which is often) it's a sight to behold. There's not much worse than someone Reprising their own Skulker in the end step and it splitting into 3/3s... Likewise, the Sphinx is an even bigger bomb when it's generating 2/2s or higher, which makes up for not having critical mass of artifacts. What would you rather have? One more artifact creature to generate another 1/1, or a Paragon that gives you one less, but doubles the P/T of all the others?

Likewise, the Sculptor doesn't really suffer either. It can't cheapen the Paragon, but the Paragon gives the Sculptor more late-game relevance. A 2/3 blocker is pretty good, especially one that can fly and thus help trigger a Sphinx. Its only really the Skulker that doesn't do anything with the artifact creatures, but the fact it works so well on its own, and with the Paragons, gives it a slot.

Like his Dimir deck too, it has a Bident blowout trick. But this time with Safe Passage instead of Hysterical Blindness, which works just as well.

There's likely a few differences with his build, mainly in Amulet/Capsule/Land quantities (he likes subbing land for Amulets to strip it out...) but it's mostly the same I think, and the core is identical. Personally I'd take out the Time Warp and the Amulets and change them for lands to make it 24, but the rest is fine. That does make Esperzoa bounces tougher though, so maybe that's why he does it?

Gonna give this one a try too but not sure how I feel about it yet.

My take on it is this:

You have the standard Azorius Artifact shell, but you're lacking creatures. Now you can either add Black and Strixes, Fiends and (Tower) Gargoyles, or you can take this path and add Paragons and Skulkers instead.

Going Esper adds an element of mana awkwardness of course, but let's look at the creatures in synergy terms. The Strix is great, but it doesn't combo with the Sculptor, same as the Paragon. It combos with the Sphinx, but so does the Paragon, just in a different, arguably better manner. The only overall plus it has is it combos with the Sanctum Gargoyle, while the Paragon doesn't, but it does combo with every other creature except that.

Tower Gargoyles would just replace the Comorants most of the time instead of being added, but as the Comorants can be cheapened further, this isn't a straight addition, or a straight comparison.

Then we have the Glaze Fiends. Personally I don't feel they're worth it. They're an aggro card in a midrange shell. If you want this type of play, the Kiln Fiends are better.

So instead of Paragons our alternative is add a third colour, put in 4 Strixes, and convert 4 Cormorants to 3 Gargoyles, which gives us a net gain of just 3 creatures - essentially the same. Now what is better value here? That's the question. Is the 1 P/T boost of the Gargoyle better than potentially lowering costs and not needing a 3rd colour? Would you rather see a Strix or a Paragon most games? With a Sphinx on board, which is the better card?

The Skulker is just gravy and not related to this argument, but once you have Paragons and are looking for two more creatures, then it's hard to argue against. Especially as the only other artifact creatures you can use are the colourless Gargoyles, Stuffy Dolls and Galvanic Juggernauts. All workable cards, but not great fits here. But as the Skulker is an amazing creature on its own, and works great with the Bident, Paragon, Capsule, Hall, and Reprisal. It's just a great fit.

The Safe Passage/Bident trick is just something he likes, and can easily be changed for something else without really hurting what it's trying to do. You could happily replace the Passages with Cloudfin Raptors, more removal, or even add that third colour and put Strixes back in to have the best of both worlds!

It's an odd concept, for sure, but it really does work once you get your head around why he's made the choices he has. It isn't a deck I would have thought to make, but I think it's all the better for that.

I feel like the deck kinda needs some more removal for early threats.

As I say, the Safe Passage element can easily go. He just likes that trick, but it isn't essential to the deck.

I haven't jumped into the artifact shell yet, so I think I'll give this a whirl. Sort of like you say, I think I'm going to swap out on the Safe Passage bit. While amusing, I just can't say I find myself in game states that abuse that interaction often enough.

I played the deck and I was wrong. Etherium Sculptor and Darksteel Ingot are complementary because they ramp the deck into the top end really fast and it's quite amazing. The amount of draw, recursion, ramp, and synergy is quite strong here. The whole deck just works.

I think I was somewhat right about Wall of Omens being bad, though, because Monk agreed to test -3 Walls for +2 Stoneforge Mystic and +1 Avarice Amulet.

Yeah my experiences were good with the ingots as well.

Thanks for testing Hakeem. The mystic and amulet have been good in the few games I have played. Between that and mentor we can grind out games where things aren't quite going to plan. Here is the updated list

Monk, after some more extensive testing I really don't like the following cards here:

Stoneforge Mystic
Mentor of the Meek
Avarice Amulet

I think we could just play Raise the Alarm here; it's a good trick against aggro, it gives us chumps against midrange, and beats down against control. Just a good card overall.

I know you wanted Gods Willing and it's possible that it's correct, but I want to test Raise first. What do we do with that last slot?

Those are the exact cards I wasn't feeling when I saw the list myself.

Looking over this list, It is really growing on me. I think this may be the most interesting azorius list I have seen since Mobius' combo build.

I'm going to test these changes:

-2 Stoneforge Mystic
-2 Mentor of the Meek
-1 Avarice Amulet
-1 Angelic Edict
-1 Obelisk of Alara

+4 Voyage's End
+3 Guard Gomazoa

I'm also changing the manabase to:

3 Seaside Citadel
3 Arcane Sanctum
10 Plains
8 Island